Saving photos and memories from a flood

K. R. Sharada’s home sits
on an elevated area overlooking the paddy and tapioca fields, and the patches
of banana cultivation in Ranni Angadi village of Pattanamthitta district. All fields
that are being worked on by Kudumbashree sangha
krishis (group or collective farms). Not only did the August 2018 floods in
Kerala drown
those fields, they rose high enough to enter her home on the ridge
above them – and submerged the entire ground floor. “I had to leave home for 11
days,” says Sharada, who spent those days in a relief camp on higher ground.
She herself is not a farmer but a homemaker.

Many days after her return, she’s still drying
out her belongings on the porch and steps of her house. The most precious of
those to her seem to be some lovely family photos. Luckily, many of them are of
the washable or water-resistant, laminated kind. She had them drying on some
steps at the side, including a few of her son, K.R. Rajesh, who is in the
military and away on duty. Sharada doesn’t know his precise location but
believes he is in “some place” in the north.